Just In Case
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Set during 3.04. Danny Pickett's thoughts as Colleen is dying and being operated on by Jack. ColleenPickett.


**Okay, this is a one-shot set during Every Man For Himself. Basically, I felt so sorry for the Others when Colleen died, and this is based on what was going through Pickett's head when his wife was dying. Kinda sad...not a happy ending, which is weird for one of my fics. This is my first Lost romance that hasn't been Jate. Just so people don't get confused 'Cole' is the nickname for Colleen that Juliet mentions to Jack.  
Sam  
xxx**

**Just In Case**

Danny Pickett wasn't sure how long he'd been here now. He knew that he had been here a long time, not as long as Ben, but it was long enough, too long even. He always knew that he'd been there too long when he realised that he couldn't remember coming to this place. He had been so young. All that he could remember was what he was told by Bea. His parents had died, and he had no legal guardian. A neighbour had cared for him for a few months before hearing about the Dharma Initiative.

Next thing, he was being shipped off to this island.

It wasn't all bad there though. They had nice houses, food, water, all the necessities and more. He had Colleen. She was more than enough to keep him there, to keep him happy. As long as she was there, he'd never even consider leaving that place, even though he knew there was no way of leaving.

Cole had been there already when he had been there. Either that or she had been brought at the same time. He never knew exactly, and she couldn't think of when she arrived in relation to him. All he knew is that for everything he could remember about the island, she had been there for it, growing into the beautiful, determined, strong woman that she was today.

He wished that he could be with her now, to protect her. Just in case, he'd told her.

Nothing had ever gone wrong for the pair of them. They had always been friends, growing up on this place, learning about the Dharma Initiative, and later, how it had failed, and it had been the two of them, him and Colleen. Later, he and Colleen had fallen in love, and they had been the first marriage to take place on that island, conducted by a man who used to be a priest.

Nothing had ever gone wrong for them, but he wanted to be there, just in case.

Now, she was at the other side of the island, going after Sun, Jin and Sayid. Another three of the Oceanic survivors, who were poking their noses in where it wasn't their business. They only wanted James, Kate and Jack. He wasn't sure why they were bothering so hard with Ford. He was annoying, and he couldn't wait to be the one to dispose of him.

He'd never been fond of killing, and he'd never had to be the one on the trigger end of the bullets that were crossed, but he would be for James.

He knew that something was wrong with the operation on the other side of the island. The team should have been back by now. Colleen should have been back by now. He hadn't slept the half night he had been in his bed, and he was thankful at 1am when the time for his shift watching over James and Kate came. He hoped that it would stop his mind going overtime worrying.

But it hadn't.

Sunrise came, and the time for work began. Not for him, unless you counted watching people breaking rocks as work. He strode into the clearing where the pair were kept in the old polar bear cages. He remembered first seeing those cages with the mighty bears in. He was ten years old, and Colleen was nine. They had heard the mighty roars, and had snuck away from Tom, at thirteen years old, who was told to keep an eye on them. He had been frightened of the animals he didn't recognise at first, until he remembered them, only in the form of a stuffed animal.

"Time for work." He announced arrogantly, opening Ford's cage with two other men behind him. The pair never spoke much, and he never spoke to them. They were simply their to ensure his protection in case his reactions failed him. A simple arrangement that was kept to at all times.

Ford smirked at him, a smirk that he was growing to hate with such intensity he wasn't sure it was possible. Then he realised what he was smirking at - the bandage on his nose from the damage he had caused from yesterday out on the work field. He had kissed her, Kate, and then he had broken his nose.

"Sound a little stuffy there, Chinatown." He commented in the thick Southern drawl. "You need to blow your nose?"

He glared at him, dropping his voice low so that each syllable that left his lips vibrated the air. "Just give me an excuse." He threatened.

"I thought I just did." Ford told him. "What do I got to do - talk about your mother?"

He lunged forwards, grabbing Ford's shirt collar in his fists and gripping it tightly. Ford barely reacted, and he was angered even more to see a smile hidden in his eyes. Satisfaction. He knew he was getting to him.

"_Danny, are you there_?"

The voice coming from his hip interrupted him from his thoughts on how much he wanted to cause Ford pain.

"Yeah?" He replied into the walkie-talkie.

The voice came again, but said something he couldn't hear. He had a feeling that this was something that Ford shouldn't hear, and considering he still gripped his face only inches from his own, he would hear every word.

"Hold on." He said, and then shoved Ford back into his cage, not bothering to bolt the door as the two guards stepped forward to do this for him. He turned his back on Ford, and spoke into the walkie-talkie. "Okay, go."

What they repeated back to him stopped his heart for a moment. "What? Where are they?" He asked.

His question was answered seconds later, as a shouting in the bushes came closer, and then a group of people surrounding a stretcher rushed into the clearing, not giving a single glace to the people inside it.

Ben, Juliet, Tom, and some other was there...and on the stretcher was Colleen. Cole. His Colleen.

He rushed over to them, coming to her side as they continued to move her quickly towards the Hydra. He took her hand in his, looking down on her pain-stricken face. His eyes glanced down to see where she was hurt, and he was horrified at the amount of blood coming from her stomach.

Tom's voice came, speaking to Juliet with a worried tone. "She's hurt bad, Juliet." He told her.

"Keep her steady!" She repsonded sharply, as Tom's worry from his voice caused him to let down on keeping the stretcher steady for a moment.

Nobody gave Danny a second glace, and it was his wife there on the stretcher. His wife that was hurt...

"She's going to be fine, right?" He demanded of any of them. "She's going to be okay?"

But, again, nobody gave Danny a second glace, and they certainly didn't give him an answer.

--------

Everything else was blocked out around him. He knew that Juliet was removing the bullet from Colleen's abdomen, but he didn't watch. He couldn't. His eyes were trained on her face. It wasn't pain stricken anymore. They had given her a sedative, and he had made sure that the last thing her eyes saw when she closed her eyes was his face, right in front of her, telling that she was going to be okay.

He wasn't sure whether he believed that or not, but he knew that he had to.

Juliet had gone now, he wasn't sure whether, but he knew enough to know that if she didn't come soon, Cole would bleed to death. Death. Dying. Dead. Colleen, dead. He couldn't think like that. But it was hard not to when he was watching her unconscious face pale by the second. A splattering of blood had hit her cheek, only enough to look like a pinprick, but he used his shaking hand to stroke the crimson stain off of her flawless, sun-kissed complexion.

"C'mon, Cole, hang in there. You're gonna be fine, okay? You hear me? We're gonna fix you up, good as new, and I'm gonna take care of you, and you're gonna be just great." He whispered to her, his hand cupping her cheek, stroking it with his thumb. "I'm sorry I wasn't there, Cole, I'm sorry. I should have been there. I love you, okay? I love you."

He couldn't do anything else, and it killed him. All he could do was stand beside her, stroking her face as if it could magically help her in some way. He had no medical knowledge, no understanding of surgery that could save her life. He only had the fact that he loved her, so he told her that over and over again, wondering whether she could actually here him.

"What happened?"

That voice. He didn't know it. Not as one he heard every day, and it certainly wasn't a voice that he needed to hear. No, the only voice that he needed to hear was Colleen's. He turned his head, to see the door starting to open, Juliet's voice skimming through the open door.

"Gunshot wound to the abdomen."

She said it as if she was talking about a stranger, but he knew that she had come to value Cole as a friend as much as she had to anyone else.

The person who stepped into the room behind Juliet, was Jack Shephard, the other survivor of the plane crash that they had captured.

"What's he doing in here?" Danny demanded. He was one of them. One of them, just like the person who had shot Colleen.

"Danny, he's here to help." Juliet said, trying to calm him enough to let Jack help. He didn't want this guy coming in and taking over, pretending this was just another patient. This was their friend, his Cole, he couldn't just let her die. He refused to watch her die. Jack hated them, what if he just let her die for the hell of it.

"Tell him who did this." He said, his eyes never once leaving Jack as he came to the opposite side of the table that his dying wife lay on. "He ought to know that." He ought to know that his friends are savages, shooting out in cold blood. He ought to know about the guilt they should suffer and he wanted this doctor to suffer it for them.

"Danny-" Juliet tried again, but he wasn't listening. He didn't care that Juliet had been working on Cole, but this was Jack. One of them. An outsider. A prisoner. How could they trust that he was really going to help her?

"I need him out of here." Jack said, never once looking specifically at him. Instead, he was looking over Colleen. Surely if he had any heart, he would care about the fact that Danny was dying inside. He would respect that he wanted to stay with his wife, with the woman that he loved. If he had ever been in love he would have understood that.

"Danny, get out." Juliet instructed, trying to move him from Colleen's side, but he looked at them as if they were insane. He couldn't leave. He wouldn't. He promised.

"Come on, Danny. Let's go." Came another voice, more sombre. Tom's voice. Tom put his hands on his shoulders, and led him from the room.

Determined not to leave, he struggled.

"Go." Juliet urged.

"No way, she's my wife!" He protested. He couldn't leave her. He'd told her that no matter what, he was never going to leave her. They were going to face everything and anything together. That was thier agreement. That was part of the vows they had exchanged at their wedding. He couldn't back down on them, not now, when she needed himthe most.

"Danny, they got it." Tom said, and pulled him from the room without giving him another chance to break free.

Tom took him up to the top room, which overlooked the surgery. This wasn't something that Danny needed to see, but he knew that there was no chance of him leaving. Ben was already up there, watching intently now that his business with Ford was over as well. He knew that Juliet was out of her depth, and part of him was glad that Jack had agreed to help them out. Ben cast his glance sideways momentarily to Danny, who had his hand pressed against the glass of the window, knowing that it was as close as he could get to his wife.

There was nothing else to do other than to listen to the voices that came over the crackling speaker.

"_I got the bullet out, but she's still bleeding_." He knew she was still bleeding. There was blood on the bottom of his shirt. It had caught against it when he had been leaning over her.

"_Right upper quadrant; it's swelling badly_." Swelling was bad. He didn't understand doctor terms, but he knew that swelling was bad.

"_No, I padded it_." Yeah, she had padded it. He remembered hearing her say it. He thought. Maybe she did. But she was a smart girl, she would have thought to pad it.

"_I need you to clamp under the liver so I can get a look back there_." Clamp it? Was that safe? It sounded painful and dangerous.

"_I'm not a surgeon_." She sounded desperate, and although Danny knew that she wasn't trained for this kind of medical work, he needed her to try with all her heart to save Cole.

"_I know, but I need you to do this_." _Please, Juliet, help save her_, he thought desperately.

"_Here_."

"_She's got retro-hepatic bleed_." A what? "_It's behind the liver, that's why you missed it. I need the pads, as many as you got...alright, another one_." No, no, something was going wrong. He could feel it. He could feel her slipping away.

But another one wasn't enough. The sound of her heartbeat dropped.

He didn't know much about medical terms, but he knew that the sound he was hearing was her life ending. His heart thumped in his chest, and he knew that it would burst from his ribcage at any second.

"_The crash cart, now, Juliet, I need the paddles_." No...

Maybe there was still hope. Those paddle things would work. They would give her a little shock, and her heart would start again. She'd be okay, she'd-

"_It's broken_." Juliet said. _"We've had...Jack, we haven't had anything happen before. We didn't...we have...I don't..." _

Danny could only watch with his heart breaking into a million pieces inside his chest as Jack started to pound on his wife's chest. CPR...that's what they did to people who weren't breathing, to people who's hearts weren't working. Tears started to form in his eyes, and he bit his lip to prevent the lump in his throat from jumping out and engulfing him. He shut his eyes tightly, and memories of the life they had shared together started to run through his head.

Playing and running around on the perfectly kept grass...

Sitting on Amelia's porch, eating the cookies she had freshly baked, especially for them...

Being punished for straying into the jungle to far by sitting with the book club, sitting in the corner and discreetly grinning at each other over the books they were meant to be reading...

The time they had found the polar bears and she had screamed when they had roared, backing up against him whilst he held her...

Learning how to dance to the sound of old motown from the record player he borrowed from Amelia...

Getting married outside in the centre of the town they lived in, her wearing the only dress he had ever seen her wear, smiling at him, beautiful and his...

Welcoming their daughter into the world together...the two of them...

"_Time of death..." _

His eyes snapped open. No...it couldn't...it...no...

"_She's gone_."

He swore that he knew what dying felt like then, as he looked down on her still body, knowing that it was never again going to move.

He had lost the only person he had ever loved, and he knew that this wasn't going to change. She would never come back, and he slowly fell to pieces, the tears in his eyes escaping onto his cheeks. They had taken him away from her. Why had they made them out to be the bad guys?

"They did this." He muttered, and then walked for the door, Tom grabbing his arm. "They did this!" He yelled.

"Danny, wait." Tom protested, but he broke free of his arm and marched out of the door. "Danny, wait, no!"

It was pitiful for Tom to try and stop him from what he was about to do. They all knew that he was going after Ford...after all, all he needed was an excuse. It wasn't fair that this had happened. Not to Cole. She was a beautiful, amazing woman, who had given him a life to live for on this island, and they had taken her away from him. Not only that, but he now had to go home that night, and explain to their four-year-old daughter, Natalie, that her mother wasn't coming home that night, or next week, or ever again.

Nothing bad had ever happened to him and Colleen, but he should have been there anyway...just in case.


End file.
